The Top Ten Most Successful “Missing” Number Ones Artists – Number 9: Dan Fogelberg

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(Note: Criteria, Scoring and Rationale for this series may be found here.)

Dan Fogelberg
(57.6 pts):

  • 4 Top 10 hits
  • 2 Top 20
  • 5 Top 40
  • 3 Top 100 hits
  • “Longer” peaked at #2 in 1980.

On July 12th, 1979, a game between the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers at Comiskey Park was suspended and later forfeited to the visiting team.

Because of a poorly conceptualized promotion called Disco Demolition.  

That week on the Billboard charts, disco dominated.

  • Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell” sat at #1; Donna Summer took up the next two spots.
  • Six of the top 10 were disco songs, including one-hit wonder and part-time werewolf David Naughton with his über-disco hit “Makin’ It” (it’s a 3).
  • Singer-songwriter Ricki Lee Jones topped the non-disco songs with “Chuck E’s in Love” at #4 (it’s a 6.)

But the pop world was dominated by disco.  

The response to that eventful night was a backlash to disco that Stereogum reviewer Tom Breihan does a great job explaining here, but essentially disco had peaked. It took a few years to sort out what would be the next “big” thing in pop music.

But in the vacuum that followed disco’s decline, a wide variety of music appeared in the Top 20: medleys, disco, country, rock, nostalgic doo-wop, and soft rock among others.

And Dan Fogelberg had the biggest hit of his career.

Fogelberg was born in 1951 in Peoria, Illinois to a classically trained pianist and a high school band director. He taught himself how to play slide guitar and piano, and in high school he started a Beatles cover band.

At age 16 he’d recorded a few songs he’d written.

While studying painting in college was discovered playing acoustic shows at a local coffee shop by Irving Azoff, who’d also signed REO Speedwagon.

Azoff sent him to Nashville to work on his skills, where he recorded his first album, Home Free. 

That album didn’t do much in sales (outside of Jackson, Mississippi), but he had a lot of support with his follow-up, Souvenirs.

Joe Walsh was the producer, while Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Graham Nash played on some tracks. “Part of the Plan”, Fogelberg’s second single from the album, hit the Top 40, and he was on his way to success. 

If it seems like there were a lot of [The] Eagles on his album, there were.

For a brief time he and Henley discussed what the band would look like if Fogelberg joined.

Instead, Joe Walsh joined the Eagles for On the Border, while Fogelberg found his niche: a solid songwriter who sold albums in the United States and Canada, but rarely impressed the pop market

…at least, until after Disco Demolition Night.

Phoenix was Fogelberg’s sixth studio album; another double-platinum success,.

The first single failed. “Face The Fire”, written in response to the Three Mile Island nuclear near-disaster that summer – and NOT burning vinyl at Disco Demolition – was released in November, and went nowhere.

Disco was still strong: Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer’s disco ballad “Enough is Enough” was #1 – (Tom gave it an 8), but changes were on the horizon, as “My Sharona” (8) and “Pop Muzik” (9) had already topped the charts.

“Longer” was released on December 8, and it began a slow climb:

Peaking fourteen weeks later under “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (6) and Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” which surprisingly also hit the disco charts (another 6, but Tom’s wrong…it’s a 10).  

There’s no percussion in “Longer”, nothing to give it a backbone…and that’s a problem. The acoustic guitar and harp intertwine throughout the song, with only a chord slide at :09 and a few times later to make it interesting.

Otherwise, it’s the audio version of overcooked pasta, and the lyrics are worse. Fish have been on Earth for over half a billion years – is the narrator immortal? What about the subject? Oops, sorry…longer than the stars up in the heavens, so we’ve bumped it up to over 14 billion years. This guy witnessed the Big Bang.

Dan even acknowledged the limpness of the song, saying “Longer” was the song “that put him on the elevators”, Muzak style.

There are more sincere ways to offer how hopelessly one is in love…for instance, The National’s “Slow Show” Aaron Dessner wrote: “You know I dreamed about you, I missed you for twenty-nine years”…it just comes across more heartfelt, even if they were recycled lyrics from the song “29 Years” on their first album.

Even the solo in the bridge is lukewarm, a casual flugelhorn before Fogelberg recycles his own lyrics. 

What’s so frustrating about “Longer” is that Fogelberg did so much better elsewhere.

His next album The Innocent Age had 3 Top 10 hits, and two of them were lyrical masterpieces. Released just in time for the 1980 holiday season, “Same Old Lang Syne” was an autobiographical song about running into a lost love, a story confirmed after Fogelberg’s death by the subject of the song.

It hit #9, and to this day remains one of my favorite Christmastime songs around, and in the right moment, I’ll even shed a tear.

It’s a 10, obviously.

The third single, “Leader of the Band” was an ode to his band-directing father, a gorgeous tribute written just a year before his dad’s death (it’s a 9), and it hit #9.

In between them was “Hard to Say”, which peaked higher than either at #7 (it’s a 5).

Fogelberg was an extremely good storyteller, and the pop world finally recognized it.

Three top 10 hits (plus “Run for the Roses” which hit #18), and Fogelberg had become a pop chart juggernaut.

Other soft-rock artists also enjoyed their moment in the sun as well

  • Rupert Holmes
  • Rocky Burnette
  • Bertie Higgins
  • Marty Balin

All of whom enjoyed Top 10 success in the wake of disco’s fall.

On August 1, 1981 MTV was launched. At first the channel only reached a few homes in New Jersey (and had a very limited selection of music videos), but quickly grew influential with its British New Wave videos and younger demographics. The short-lived singer-songwriter soft rock sway over the Top 100 was over. 

Fogelberg’s decline from pop stardom was gentle – he put out five albums over the next decade, and even hit the Top 20 in 1984 with “The Language of Love,” which doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page.

He never hit the Top 40 afterwards, instead leaning into different genres (blues, bluegrass) and played the nostalgia tour. 

He played all the instruments on Full Circle, his last release before his death, but you wouldn’t know it reading the credits:

“Lee Mealone” handled the congas/percussion (pronounced “Leave Me Alone,) and all the others are inside jokes – Roland Laboite, Sven Birkebeiner, among others. 

A year later, Fogelberg was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, and after chemotherapy and a brief remission, he passed away in 2007.

I wish one of his other hits peaked higher than “Longer”, but if one had, Tom would’ve rated it.

GRADE: 4/10

TRIVIA: Supertramp was mentioned TWICE in Tom’s “The Number Ones” column (“Logical Song” is a 6); in the Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again (Naturally)” for obvious reasons, since O’Sullivan and Rick Davies once played in a band together, but they’re mentioned a second time under which R&B singer’s #1 hit?

Last week Wayne Newton was the subject, mentioned once in Tom’s column under Celine Dion and R. Kelly’s “I’m Your Angel”, when Tom brought up Dion’s Vegas residencies.  

BONUS BEATS: I’m a big fan of Daft Punk, and they sampled Fogelberg and Weisberg’s “Tell Me to My Face” in their “Face to Face”, their fifth single off the perfect album Discovery:

(Daft Punk’s highest-charting single is the the 2013 Pharrell collab “Get Lucky,” which peaked at #2. It’s an 8. As guests – Daft Punk will eventually appear in Tom’s column.)

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cstolliver
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October 25, 2023 5:52 am

I came in prepared to laud Fogelberg overall and savage “Longer,” but you did both — great job!

My favorite Fogelberg tracks, most of which were not big hits:

1) Nether Lands (Donna Summer’s non-dance remake is also amazing … she used the original backing track)
2) Lonely in Love (despite its title, one of his jauntier outings)
3) Same Old Lang Syne
4) Diamonds to Dust
5) Depending on the day and my mood, The Power of Gold, Missing You or Heart Hotels (a far better follow-up to Longer).

Last edited 1 year ago by Chuck Small
stobgopper
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October 25, 2023 12:01 pm
Reply to  cstolliver

Love ‘Nether Lands.’ Will have to find that Summer track. Other favorites of mine: the aforementioned ‘Tell Me to My Face,’ ‘Illinois,’ ‘The Power of Gold.’

cstolliver
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October 25, 2023 12:20 pm
Reply to  stobgopper

Summer’s version is on the tribute to Fogelberg album that came out about five years ago. It’s on Spotify, I know.

ISurvivedPop
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October 25, 2023 5:58 am

According to my Google Doc, “Longer” is the #347 number-two hit of all time, between “What’s Poppin (Remix)” and “Pon de Replay,” both of which are better songs. Respectable but not great chart performance, I guess.

JJ Live At Leeds
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October 25, 2023 7:14 am

I’d heard the name but not the music (a solitary UK chart entry; #59 for Longer).

Having now listened to Longer, Leader of the Band and Same Old Lang Syne he’s not doing it for me, maybe it helps to have experienced it at the time. SOLS by far the best of that trio but not enough to make me want to delve deeper.

Longer put me in mind of James Blunt and You’re Beautiful. An earnest but tepid ballad. Sounds like he may have shared some of the same self awareness of Blunt that makes him so entertaining online.

Virgindog
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October 25, 2023 9:34 am
Reply to  thegue

Creepy. Really creepy.

I’m talking about Bertie, not your article. The article’s great, though I’m not a Fogelberg fan, and I learned a couple things. But Bertie? Oooh, boy.

Aaron3000
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October 25, 2023 1:19 pm
Reply to  Virgindog

I know, right? You half expect Chris Hansen to show up halfway through the video.

Patty’s done well for herself since then though, good on her.

Phylum of Alexandria
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October 25, 2023 7:26 am

I’ve never heard of this guy, but “Leader of the Band” sounds familiar to me.

Musically, it’s not my bag. I can’t seem to get into 70’s soft rock. The folkier stuff reminds me of early CCR, and the rockier stuff needs more Satan. I’ll go with Fogerty. Or Daft Punk.

Regardless, I’m enjoying the series!

Phylum of Alexandria
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October 25, 2023 8:44 am

Ha, just realized I typed CCR rather than CCM. I’m turning into an old fogerty indeed…

Virgindog
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October 25, 2023 9:31 am

I’d rather listen to CCR!

rollerboogie
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October 25, 2023 12:06 pm
Reply to  Virgindog

Bad Moon Rising is a better apocalyptic song than anything out of CCM, as far as I’m concerned, and believe me there were many. “White Horse” by Michael Omartian is musically more my speed, but the lyrics are a bit hard to stomach if you are not a hard core fundamentalist Christian.

cstolliver
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October 25, 2023 12:17 pm
Reply to  rollerboogie

Now, all I can think of is “Don’t ride the white horse.” Not what you’re referring to, I know.

rollerboogie
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October 25, 2023 12:58 pm
Reply to  cstolliver

White Horse by Laid Back > White Horse by Michael Omartian, and maybe even Whitehorse, Yukon.

Napoleon of Birds
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October 25, 2023 3:23 pm
Reply to  rollerboogie

Whitehorse, Yukon > even the Laid Back song

mt58
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October 25, 2023 8:09 am

It might’ve been the sleepy hits that put him on the charts.
But his musicianship went a little bit deeper than that. Here’s a favorite. About the time that he started to become ill.

https://youtu.be/H69ohsJOliw?si=mPnqdofyM7MHIZYs

rollerboogie
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October 25, 2023 11:55 am
Reply to  mt58

Great song. I remember it well!

Napoleon of Birds
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October 25, 2023 8:55 am

Ooh! Ooh! It’s Usher and Alicia Keys, behind which “Breathe” by Fabolous — built on a Supertramp sample — got to #10.

You know what else got to #10? Take The Long Way Home, Supertramp’s other top-ten hit. That one is an 8, perhaps a 9 on a good day, but nostalgia is talking there. It’s definitely better than The Logical Song, which my least favourite music teacher would plunk out on a piano for half an hour while his students worked away at instruments they barely knew how to play.
(Oh, and Get Lucky sometimes gets a 9 rating — Tom’s like that — but I like the #1 song where they are guest artists even more.)

Last edited 1 year ago by Napoleon of Birds
rollerboogie
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October 25, 2023 11:42 am

Nice work. Many thoughts on this. “Longer” has a storied history in my family. My brother Greg owned Phoenix, and played it frequently. My little sister at one point highjacked the album and would sit and listen to Longer, while staring off into space with the unmistakable gaze of young love. Greg ended up having “Longer” played at his wedding. 32 years later, my oldest brother Mike asked me to play/sing Longer at his wedding, along with the best friend of the bride. He had forgotten that Greg had it at his wedding.
Call it cheesy, but it’s a song that definitely grabbed a hold of a significant portion of my family and never quite let go. Me? I know the lyrics are ridiculous and outsized but aren’t a lot of our emotions like that when we are in love? Perhaps that is why lots of folks gravitated toward it, not just because “Ring My Bell” turned out to be a funeral toll. Just my opinion.

My older sibs had a number of Fogelberg’s albums including Twin Sons of Different Mothers with flautist Tim Weisberg,The Innocent Age and Windows and Walls. I became very familiar with a lot of his music and I was always struck by his storytelling and emotional depth. He really found a way to engage. One of the best singer-songwriters out there methinks.

I once was asked to play a more obscure Fogelberg song at a wedding years ago. It was “There’s a Place in This World for a Gambler” off that second album, Souvenirs. It’s a nice one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srNvp7w341I

BTW, the article you linked about disco is written by Nate Patrin, not Tom.

rollerboogie
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October 25, 2023 3:13 pm
Reply to  thegue

It actually connects to this- https://www.stereogum.com/2050816/best-disco-songs/lists/ultimate-playlist/
I’ve clicked on it 3 times and that’s where it sends me. I’ve read the article before. It’s actually pretty good.

Last edited 1 year ago by rollerboogie
mt58
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October 26, 2023 11:31 pm
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Not thegue’s fault – a production error. Fixed.

mjevon6296
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October 25, 2023 12:33 pm

Reading this brought back a flood of memories of being in middle school and hearing The Innocent Age singles on the radio. I thought I was a cynical, obnoxious pre-teen at the time but “The Leader of the Band” and “Run for the Roses” would get to me every time.

Pauly Steyreen
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October 25, 2023 12:50 pm

This is what my parents listened to when I was a kid — sleepy late-70’s tripe like “Longer”. Every once in a while, a decent song would slip into their rotation — Red Headed Stranger-era Willie Nelson for example. But I was mostly turned off by their snoozeroonie musical taste and as soon as I had the authority to make my own musical choices, I made a beeline for early rap (Beasties, Run DMC) and heavy metal.

blu_cheez
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October 25, 2023 3:52 pm

Weeps gently into his crumpled-up “Longer Rules” T-shirt and walks home in the rain….

Ozmoe
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October 25, 2023 4:09 pm

Tom gave Enough is Enough an 8 while Another Brick in the Wall got only a 6 and Magic did even worse at 3? This all reminded that he was really off in his grading during that 1979-81 period of reviews, IMO.

SlowBurn
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October 25, 2023 5:25 pm

Great series! I remember when he became more popular dog bring the turn of the 80’s decade. Christopher Cross stole some of his thunder with his excellent debut record. Probably the one TNI article when Dan Fogelberg could have been mentioned. But here we are recognizing his contribution to soft rock. Saddened to learn of his life cut short to cancer, but we have some nice tunes from him such as “Hearts Hotel”.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q2qy0v4SvJM&pp=ygUbZGFuIGZvZ2VsYmVyZyBoZWFydCBob3RlbHMg

mt58
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October 25, 2023 8:16 pm
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Good, welcome to you, Slow Burn!

SlowBurn
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October 26, 2023 12:59 am
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Thanks, it’s feels great to DeLurk!

LinkCrawford
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October 25, 2023 9:19 pm

All right, all right, I am not appreciating the lack of Fogelberg love here! 🙂

First of all, “Longer” is cliche, but the music is nice…ESPECIALLY that bridge. That flugelhorn over the guitar with the string is gorgeous!

I have never gone beyond his first greatest hits album, but I really like 7 of those songs a lot. I’ve figured out that I generally DON’T like it when Dan tries to rock. “Power of Gold”? Boring. “Missing You”? Generic. “Heart Hotels” is the most uptempo song of his that I like, and I LOVE it! Those pedal bass notes under the changing chords during the “instrumental chorus” (If there is such a thing), are great.

The storytelling and tender music of the ballads off The Innocent Age are pretty impressive. But sometimes the song that gets me the most is “Make Love Stay”…oh, the music in that song is so pretty. And he rhymes ‘consumed’ with ‘exhumed’, which is cool.

Also, in 1990 he had a #3 Adult Contemporary remake of “Rhythm of the Rain” (in which he plays a snippet of the Beatles’ “Rain”), which is pretty good, I think.

cstolliver
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October 25, 2023 10:37 pm
Reply to  LinkCrawford

I like Fogelberg just fine. You may remember my tale about The Innocent Age on the mothership. But I hate Longer. No fluegelhorn flourish can save it for me.

rollerboogie
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October 26, 2023 12:55 am
Reply to  LinkCrawford

I think it’s just you, me and a good portion of my family on the side of Longer, Link.

spacecitymarc
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October 26, 2023 5:15 am

That Guy Alert: It was Don Felder who joined (the) Eagles starting with ON THE BORDER. Joe Walsh joined (the)m two albums later, with HOTEL CALIFORNIA.

spacecitymarc
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October 26, 2023 8:04 pm

I don’t know, I think “Longer” is pretty. Wildly saccharine but, you know, nicely?

“Same Auld Lang Syne” is distinctly not my jam, however, wildly saccharine but, you know, wildly saccharine. An automatic eyeroll every time it pops up on the eternal Christmas station. That said, there’s something that started nibbling at my brain about five years ago. Essentially, Dan Fogelberg makes it pretty clear that the narrator is… soft-rock megastar Dan Fogelberg, right?

“She said she saw me in the record stores
And that I must be doing well
I said the audience was heavenly
But the traveling was Hell”

So, given the specifics of the details he lays out in the song, if I were an architect married to someone who used to date Dan Fogelberg, you bet your ass I’d’ve had some tough questions for my wife come Christmas 1980.

Virgindog
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October 26, 2023 10:27 pm
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Good catch! And welcome.

Two de-lurkers in one article? We must be doing something right!

mt58
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October 26, 2023 11:30 pm
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Good welcome to you, !

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October 27, 2023 7:10 am

I’m not a Fogelberg fanatic, but I like all of his hits (except “Make Love Stay”), and if “Longer” isn’t profound lyrically, I still like the tune. Of course, as I’ve said, it’s very unusual for me not to like any big hit that I heard a lot in the 1970s up to about 1982. It was after 1982 that Fogelberg and soft rock in general, or at least the kind that had been popular since the early 1970s, just got washed away, one reason I consider 1983 a pivotal year for popular music.

The big Bertie Higgins hit was one of those very few major hit songs of that period that I heard plenty but just didn’t like even when it was a hit. Another was “Just When I Needed You Most” by Randy VanWarmer, another soft rock one-hit wonder. Even though I basically liked wussy music, those were just too wussy even for me.

I wouldn’t really categorize Rocky Burnett as soft rock. I have his big album (digitally), and it it’s mostly like “Tired of Toein’ the Line,” toeing the line between new wave-ish rock and old-time rock ‘n’ roll a la his father and uncle (Johnny and Dorsey Burnette).

Small correction: The Fogelberg song about Three Mile Island was called “Face the Fire.” Also, I don’t see any record of its having been released as a commercial single. Billboard refers to “Longer” as the “initial single” from Phoenix. I believe I heard “Face the Fire” on the radio as an album cut, though, because when I bought the Phoenix album I think I was surprised that I recognized it. If I remember right.

Last edited 1 year ago by AdaminPhilly
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October 27, 2023 1:04 pm
Reply to  thegue

I did not know that. I guess you are referring to “Let’s Put the Fun Back in Rock ‘n’ Roll,” the #81 hit on which they backed up Freddie Cannon, himself last seen on the Hot 100 in 1966. Just listened to it. Not bad; not familiar either. It’s a complete throwback. Might have done better in the UK, where UK-based acts Showaddywaddy, Shakin’ Stevens, and Darts had been having hit after hit in a rock ‘n’ roll revival style. (A few years ago I listened to at least part of every song that charted on the Hot 100 in 1979 and 1980. I didn’t do 1981, though I’d intended to.)

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October 27, 2023 6:27 pm

Dan Fogelberg on “Longer”:

I was laying in a hammock on Maui, Hawaii, on vacation, with my then-wife*. All seemed right with the world. The song seemed to write itself.

Wife #1: Maggie Slaymaker

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